Cambridge Schools Pass New Budget

The Cambridge School Committee unanimously passed the district’s operating budget for the 2007-2008 fiscal year yesterday, but some committee members said they felt the budget—which at $127.7 million represents a 1.86 percent increase from last year—left many questions unanswered.

Concerns raised at the meeting centered around the reasons behind the disparity between student performance and funding in the district, which has one of the highest levels of spending per student in the state.

Patricia M. Nolan ’80 said that the budget proposal failed to answer the crucial question of why the district was spending so much money per student compared to other districts in the state.

“I want to tell people what it is we are spending the additional money on,” she said.

The projected per-student spending next year will be about $22,510, a 4.1 percent increase from 2006-2007.

Nolan said she also had questions about how the programs selected for expansion next year were chosen as the budget gave no educational rationale behind the selections.

Luc D. Schuster, a Cambridge teacher and another member of the school committee, shared Nolan’s concerns. He said that while the higher per-student spending was partially explained by smaller class sizes, cost-free participation in sports and extracurricular activities, and coaches for math and literacy, there are still ways in which costs can be reduced.

He also said he wanted to see an accelerated reduction in spending on the central administration of the district, which includes Cambridge’s 13 public schools.

“We have a responsibility to taxpayers to get that money into the classrooms as quickly as possible,” he said.

Nancy Walser, who is currently in her fifth term as a school committee member, was a staunch supporter of the budget.

“The answer to the question ‘what are we spending the money on’ is obvious—just pick up the budget book and look,” she said.

Walser praised the recent progress that the schools have made, citing this year’s increase in the number of kindergarten applicants to the district as proof.

“We should enjoy this moment because we are in the most enviable position imaginable,” she said. “It’s only a matter of time before people start to see the resources we spend on our children as a tremendous asset.”

The number of students attending Cambridge schools has been on a steady decline in recent years, a trend that City Councillor Craig A. Kelley said schools need to work harder to address through marketing efforts.

“We need to do a better job of convincing people that the opportunities they have here are as good or even better than those they would find elsewhere,” he said.

—Staff writer Jamison A. Hill can be reached at jahill@fas.harvard.edu.